Washington GMO labeling initiative losing, but not done

Washington state’s GMO labeling measure appears to be going down in defeat, early results show.

With slightly less than a million votes counted, the current tally on Ballot Initiative 522, which would require the labeling of foods that contain genetically modified organisms, show those opposed leading by about 536,000 (54.8 percent) to 442,000 (45.2 percent). The figures represent about a quarter of the state’s 3.9 million registered voters, so more votes are on the way.

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The delay in the final vote total is due to the fact that Washington is a mail-in ballot state, and it will count any ballots postmarked by Nov. 5, even if those ballots arrive at the end of the week. As a result, the tally on election night often only reflects about 60 percent of the votes that ultimately will be received, according to Brian Zylstra, a spokesman for Washington’s Office of the Secretary of State.

If that holds true in this election, with 997,566 ballots counted on election night, another 665,044 could be in the mail.

Elizabeth Larter, spokeswoman for the “Yes on I-522” campaign tells POLITICO that given the spread out returns, the campaign remains optimistic that the final results will support the measure.

“Usually with Washington State campaigns, it tends to be that the more conservative vote tends to come in earlier … so we knew going into tonight that we would either be down or it would be very close,” Larter said. Voters in King County — the state’s most populous and home to Seattle — who have supported the measure in polling, tend to mail their ballots at the last minute, and so election results often “take a couple of days to catch up.”

The Associated Press, in its coverage of the measure, has described I-522 as “failing in early returns,” but has yet to predict a winner. Predictions on the percentage of registered voters who would participate in the election has ranged from 30 percent to more than 50 percent, so the vote count could nearly double. Most importantly, only about 22.4 percent of the registered voters in King County have been collected, and among those the measure is leading 55.8 percent to 44.2 percent.

King County accounts for 30 percent of the state’s registered voters. In fact, Seattle, where early polls indicated lopsided support for mandatory labeling, is expected to have a larger turnout due to a contentious mayoral race.

Another significant county reporting: Pierce County, which includes Tacoma and about 440,00 registered voters, currently shows I-522 trailing by a 43,239 to 60,060 vote count, though that tally represents just 23 percent of those registered.

The close results should come as little surprise.

While polls in September found that 66 percent of voters in the state backed the measure compared to 21 percent who didn’t, momentum quickly moved to the opposition. By Oct. 31 the polls showed the measure leading by just 4 percent, and 12 percent of voters were undecided.

What’s at stake may be big for Washingtonians, but it is even bigger for the food and biotech industries. If I-522 passes, all food sold in the state that contains GMOs, with a few exceptions, will have to be labeled starting in July 2015. That could inspire other states to put forth their own legislation in the year ahead. As many as 26 states weighed GMO labeling measures just this year.

Given that concern, the food and biotech industries, which have long opposed mandatory labeling, poured $22 million into the No on I-522 campaign, while the Yes on I-522 campaign raised $7.8 million.

Overall, No on I-522 is the highest grossing ballot initiative campaign in Washington history, beating out the prior record set by the supporters of I-1183, the 2011 effort to gain the privatization of liquor sales in the state — a measure that was ultimately successful.

The food and biotech industries used their considerable war chest to make ad buys across the state, pointing out all of the products that would not be covered under the measure — such as cheese, beer, restaurant food and even, they claimed, pet food — and pushing the message that the bill is misleading and would considerably raise food prices. They said the law would hurt Washington’s farm families.

At the same time, editorial boards at several of the state’s major newspapers, including The Tacoma News, The Yakima Herald, the Spokesman Review and even The Seattle Times, called for voters to reject the initiative.

In an Oct. 5 editorial, the Times called the push for I-522 “a clumsy, emotion-based campaign,” adding that “Labeling is one part of an effort to make the use of GMOs more expensive, arduous and complicated for farmers, processors, shippers, inspectors and regulators. Confused consumers are a desirable bonus. Ominous labels must mean something is dicey, right? The reality is we have all been eating genetically altered agricultural products for a long time without demonstrable problems.”

The statewide ballot includes only one other initiative, I-517, which aims to “set penalties for interfering with or retaliating against signature-gatherers and petition-signers; require that all measures receiving sufficient signatures appear on the ballot; and extend time for gathering initiative petition signatures.” Otherwise the statewide ballot is limited to five nonbinding advisory questions on tax issues that could be used to form legislation, and a few state senate seats and judgeships.